Alarming increase in tobacco related cancer in Thiruvananthapuram district

ukmalayalee.com

Thiruvananthapuram Feb 5: Incidence of tobacco related cancer in Thiruvananthapuram district has shown an alarming increase of 220 per cent among men and 219 per cent among women over the periods from 2009-14.

The number of cancer cases among men shot up sharply from 885 in 2009-11 to 2,835 in 2012-14, as per the latest publicly available Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCR) of the Indian Council of Medical Research, a press release said.

An analysis of the registry reports reveals that the number of tobacco related cancers among women sharply went up from 272 cases in 2009-11 to 869 in 2012-14 in the district.

Significantly, tobacco related cancers among men are the third highest in a ranking of 27 population-based registries in the country covered by the 2012-14 report with 2835 cases. This is the highest after Delhi (4185 cases) and Ahmedabad Urban (3085 cases).

The PBCR Thiruvanathapuram was established in 2006 with the objectives of assessing the magnitude and pattern of cancer incidence and mortality rates as well as estimating relative survival of various cancers.

Lung cancers top the tobacco related cancers among men according to the consolidated report of Hospital Based Cancer Registries maintained at Regional Cancer Centre here.

Consistent with the knowledge that women in Kerala are more prone to using smokeless tobacco products, mouth cancer has the first place among tobacco related cancers in this gender.